burningman wrote:
I’ve had three VP44s in 100k miles.
The vast majority don’t make it as far as yours somehow did.
Here’s an extremely entertaining bit of educational material :)
It sums up my situation exactly!
The VP44 Solution According To Wesley
There’s a reason so many people throw those things in the trash and retrofit the mechanical P-pump that several companies do good business selling kits for it.
700 horsepower is easy with a relatively inexpensive set of injectors, some pump tweaking, and a second turbo. Really, you can put however much power you want in whatever vehicle you want. You might break a thing or twelve along the way learning how...
About the trans, about $5000 will make the 47RE from the 24-valve more bulletproof than you’ll ever need.
But having said all that, I’d still recommend a new or newer gas truck.
You have to know how to keep a VP injection pump, as all my buds in our second gen truck club are running an average of 250k miles on our VP's. Some 350k. You see, another advantage to owning an older rig is not only staying away from electronic injectors and the 3-4 times more likely hood of ruining an engine with a common rail fuel system (worse thing ever done to a diesel engine), but the accumulated knowledge gained over years of ownership from members of a club or forum. Such as VP needs of min fuel pressure, has to stay above 14 at all times with better flow Half inch fuel lines, Needs good filtration, not just factory filter, low AC volts ripple coming from the alternator, and last but not least, bringing the fuel score value down by adding two stroke oil or two cycle oil to the fuel.
Burningman I suspect that your pretty POed by 3 vp's going bad in such short time. That get expensive. Our forum members are doing well in this dept, as said, and have some very nice nice reliable second gens. I personally own two of them... change my own injectors new for 400 bucks and found how easy to replace a vp as well. Both thumbs up for owning a truck that has few weak points and other owners sharing their experience on building a great truck with a little work.
Nothing like have a support group with years of knowledge behind you.... driving remote areas, little used American back roads and hearing the Cummins smoother than when it was new. There;s nothing like it
